Day 24: Adults Are Cray-Cray

Today's topic:  "Talk about how you felt about adults back when you were a kid."

Good one.  Well, on the one hand, I thought they were idiots.  Because when confronted with one they all repeated some version of "Wow!  You're getting so big!"  This seemed moronic to me.  How would they know if I was getting so big?  I didn't even know who the freak they were.  Now the joke's on me because I literally have to squeeze my lips shut to avoid blurting that exact same line every time I'm re-introduced to somebody's kid I haven't seen in a while.  So, repetitive adults of my youth:  I absolve you.

On the other hand (and I find this rather sad now) I thought they were omnipotent.  I figured you weren't "allowed" to get to adulthood without learning absolutely everything about everything.  I remember feeling very secure in this belief.  And it double-went for politicians and teachers and anyone with any sort of obvious power.  I figured they had to be the smartest, wisest, most all-knowing and all-seeing people on the planet.  Sigh.  It was a tough fall from that one, since it wasn't direct.  No, instead, I rolled slowly and awkwardly down a semi-steep incline for years, bashing my head against rocks occasionally, but didn't really hit bottom until recently.  I think having a kid in public school is what finally yanked the remaining tendrils of wool from my eyes.  And that, Readers, is all I'm going to say about that.

What else did I think about adults?  Oh, they liked weird things.  I remember going to a play in New York with some relatives and we had dinner at Sardi's first.  They all got really drunk and ridiculous, and I couldn't for the life of me understand why anyone wanted to drink that foul-smelling brown liquid and then yell a lot of pointlessness for hours.  They also ate weird stuff, like salmon (I still think that) and enjoyed weird games (like bridge.)

I also will never forget showing my 16-year-old babysitter my parents' copy of The Joy of You-Know-What (I really don't want people Googling that) and her explaining that people did this to make babies.  That seemed such a Draconian trade-off, I was practically speechless.  I got my verbal faculties back a few seconds later, however, when she said the words that are etched on my brain:  "And some people just do it for fun."  To which I shouted back: "ONLY DISGUSTING PEOPLE!!!"

What else did I think of adults?  They had boring conversations.  Had unpredictable reactions to stuff I found hilarious.  Stayed up ridiculously late.  Had a weird fixation on ironing and emptying dishwashers--two activities I couldn't see the point of.  They enjoyed "errands," to the exclusion of practically everything else.  They read a lot.  Enjoyed hiking to a pathological degree.  Didn't see why Dolly Madison Zingers were the perfect food.  Were maddeningly dense about why I was currently crying.

More than anything else, they enjoyed screaming at each other, especially when I was trying to fall asleep.  It seemed compulsory that when you became an adult, you had to get married, and when you got married, you had to call each other names.  I wanted no part of that, so I just figured I'd find a way out of getting married.  I made good on that vow for a long time, but eventually, I gave in.